I’ve been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. : gamingI've been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be. Naturally I play other games and have a life, but I often return to this game when I'm not doing anything and carry on. The results are as follows.

Fantastic Sources for Free Soundtrack Music — Life ScoopBack in the pre-digital days of video creation, directors without the cash to commission original soundtracks to their films had to rely on library music. The folks who put together these massive libraries owned all the rights to the music outright, so it was easy to license recordings for creators to use in their films, TV, and radio pieces. A TV director would flip through his network's sound library records, pick the track, and then pay for the license. (In recent years, some outré 1960s and 1970s library music has become very collectible amongst a certain breed of vintage vinyl addicts.) Physical sound libraries, and their associated licensing fees, are still around, albeit in entirely digital form.

The Inside Story of How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer via reddit.comBecause the Barsoom books were so influential to cinema's greatest sci-fi auteurs, just about everything in it had already been plundered and reused by other hits. And as a result, the more that was revealed of John Carter, the more derivative it looked, even if its source had originated these ideas. Look at what George Lucas took from Burroughs for his Star Wars movies alone: In his movies, the Sith are evil Jedis; in the world of John Carter, the Sith are evil insects. Star Wars had Princess Leia; John Carter has Princess Dejah. Leia’s infamous bikini in Return of the Jedi? Worn by Princess Dejah first. That flying skiff she’s standing on next to Jabba the Hutt? Carter again. Even those banthas in the Star Wars were culled from the John Carter books, which are populated with similar-looking beasts of burden called banths. Looking beyond Lucas, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry famously pillaged the books, as did James Cameron, who in numerous interviews called Avatar “almost an Edgar Rice Burroughs kind of adventure.”

The Santorum Strategy | TruthoutLiberals tend to underestimate the importance of public discourse and its effect on the brains of our citizens. All thought is physical. You think with your brain. You have no alternative. Brain circuitry strengthens with repeated activation. And language, far from being neutral, activates complex brain circuitry that is rooted in conservative and liberal moral systems. Conservative language, even when argued against, activates and strengthens conservative brain circuitry. This is extremely important for so-called "independents," who actually have both conservative and liberal moral systems in their brains and can shift back and forth. The more they hear conservative language over the next eight months, the more their conservative brain circuitry will be strengthened.